


These Old Bones

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-04
Updated: 2004-01-04
Packaged: 2019-05-15 03:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: It's not easy being a Bartlet. Just ask Liz.





	These Old Bones

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**These Old Bones**

**by:** Anjali

**Character(s):** Elizabeth Bartlet  
**Pairing(s):**   
**Category(s):** General/Angst   
**Rating:** YTEEN for one mild swear word  
**Disclaimer:** Like I look like Aaron Sorkin.  
**Summary:** It’s not easy being a Bartlet. Just ask Liz  
**Author's Note:** Written for erfalathiel from the lj westwingsanta community. Spoilers through _Abu El Benat._ I haven’t seen _Ellie_ , so I apologise for any errors in cannon. 

_I’m just standing in front of my closet  
Staring at these old bones_

She remembers, as a little girl, watching reruns of the old Superman series. The first time, one of her friends had explained to her the mystical powers of Superman, alias Clark Kent. She remembers thinking, _That’s my dad._

*

She was older when her father’s career in politics began. Because of that, she is probably the only Bartlet child who fully understands what it means to be in politics. She remembers what it was like before. 

Ellie does not understand, and for all the wrong reasons. Ellie the Daughter resents their father for sweeping them all up in his overwhelming, ebullient character and brilliant, sweeping ambition. Ellie the Daughter spent all her young life choking on their father’s famed charisma—the charisma that allows him to carry others with him, but does not give enough air to the dreams of others. Ellie the Doctor resents their mother, phD, for letting him do it. But then again, Ellie is also a realist, and the only member of the Bartlet family who was not born a politician. No, Ellie does not understand. 

Zoey has only known a political life. She’s grown used to it, even though she chafes at the publicity and Secret Service protection; but it is the natural progression of her father’s career, the natural result of her young life. Zoey’s father is not the college professor who decided to give in to his dreams; Zoey’s father is the state legislator and the congressman and the State Governor whose dreams are now on other people’s agenda’s. Zoey will forgive their father anything.

*

Liz remembers, but that does not change the shock when she flies to DC after Rosslyn and sees her father, the President of the United States, in his hospital bed. After the worst night of her life, when she sat in horror on her couch and her daughter wailed in the background and her husband shouted into the phone, after the blind drive to the airport and the numb flight and the headlong rush to the hospital, all she can think when she finally sees her father is _He’s smaller than I remembered._

Three months into her second pregnancy, after Rosslyn, she begins to get sick in the mornings.

*

Inexplicably, it isn’t until the heady euphoria of reelection when her husband begins to get The Itch. When they go back to their hotel room, she takes one look at his glassy eyes, and mentally sets her jaw for the road ahead. 

Doug doesn’t really do anything for about nine months. By this time, she’s recognized what will have to be done to get him elected and indeed, has already begun the long and careful process of molding a man. The Thanksgiving after Zoey is abducted, her father comes to her with the proposal that she run instead. It takes all her effort not to say _Because I don’t want to see the same circles under Annie’s eyes._ She knows that Doug’s career in politics will never garner the same exposure as her father’s. Her family will be safe. Liz feeds her anger, and banishes the pride that comes from his suggestion.

*

There is a saying, she can’t remember it precisely, that goes something along the lines of daughters marrying the men who most remind them of their fathers. The Bartlets long prided themselves on encouraging their daughters to break the bounds of convention. They never expected the girls to do so in that particular area. 

While Liz knows that most of it has nothing to do with her father, she still feels guilty when she sees the consternation on his face. And then she damns herself, and him, for it. She doesn’t think it’s fair. She’s supposed to live her life in whichever way she sees fit, and this includes marrying whomever she damn well pleases. It’s chafing to her, and more so to Ellie, to be forever bound in the shadow of their father.

*

They are all of them still awed, and to a certain extent, frightened of their father. And Abbey has achieved near-godlike stature in her daughter’s eyes for being married to him. 

Liz remembers what happened five years ago with Annie and the doll, and how that seemingly insignificant event (in the grand scheme of things) had triggered such an apocalyptic rage in her father.

Liz herself has always been frightened for the very event that happened last May. Her father’s second greatest weakness has always been his family. He has always loved them more than himself. When she was little, she’d basked in the knowledge that he’d go to the ends of the world for them. 

But love, in politics, could be lethal. Especially for a man like Jed Bartlet. 

When she’d heard that Zoey had been taken she was desperately frightened for both of them. Jed Bartlet’s strength, and great weakness was his own confidence in himself and his abilities. So to find out that he could not fix everything, and consequently could not protect his family must have been humbling. Liz cannot fathom what it must have cost him to invoke the 25th—giving up leadership of his country to sit and watch other people search for his daughter.

*

She thinks often of how spoiled they all are. How tragic that they’ve let events that would be the highlight of other people’s lives become blasé. Flying on Air Force One. Staying at the White House. The respect that is commanded by your own last name. 

She worries for all of them—how will her family adjust when it is gone? But mostly she worries for her father, and is aware of the rest of the Bartlet women turning the same questions over in their minds. None of them have really spoken about it—Zoey once tentatively brought it up, but that was before May. 

She knows that nothing will change between her father’s relationship with the three of them after he is out of office. Liz doesn’t know if she should be resigned to that or not. At any rate, she tells herself that she’s being stupid for the worry—it is not likely that he’d confide in his children about the loss he will soon face. But she worries anyway. 

*

They used to go camping in the Appalachians. Liz recalls only too well the endless hikes they went on, and the countless lectures the girls endured. Those trips are the perfect example of her father’s boundless energy and insatiable need to carry others along with him. Her mother once said that it had something to do with Jed’s own father, whom she remembers as a dour faced bear of a man. He was never very impressed with the things Jed had to say. 

As they grew older, they learned, as their mother had learned long ago, how to manage their father. Liz is probably the best at it: Zoey always indulges him anyways, and Ellie… Well. Then there is Ellie.

*

There is no coming to terms, because there is nothing to come to terms with. At least, not for her. Jed is who he is, and she is who she is, and life goes on. So she thinks ahead to Doug’s sluggish campaign, factoring in the impediments that are now apparent. She doesn’t really think of her father’s position as a betrayal. Liz understands politics, even while she resents it. At the same time, she keeps an eye on Zoey, returned to the family and still fragile—Liz watched, her heart breaking, as her baby sister waved to the press—and yet with a tilt to her jaw that is alarmingly familiar. She reigns in her coltish older daughter while maintaining a firm grip on her imperious young son. She also watches, circumspectly, her parent’s strained marriage, and tells herself firmly _It’s not your place it’s not your problem, leave it alone._

So Liz does all this, and keeps her chin up, and plows on. She is, after all, a Bartlet.

**


End file.
